3. Company’s Response

Boeing has one clear public stance here. The company puts safety and quality first and is repairing itself.

Posted after the door plug accident involving Alaska Airlines flight 1282 and subsequent review by the FAA, the statements by Boeing officials acknowledged “a quality escape,” took responsibility, and vowed to use “full transparency” in working with investigators and regulators. The company correlates the event to a process failure rather than to an affront to safety values.

In its official safety pages, annual reports, and “Strengthening Safety & Quality” resources, Boeing highlights various commitments such as:

• Expansion of Its Safety Management System Across Programs & Facilities.
• A structured Safety & Quality Plan with emphasis on staff training, simplified and managed production processes, defect minimization, and internal reporting.
• More inspections within 737 production, greater surveillance over suppliers, and collaboration with the FAA’s strengthened monitoring.
• Changes in culture include emphasizing “Speak Up” reports; that is, Boeing has pointed to the significant increase in internal safety reports as evidence that employees are more forthcoming about potential problems.

The message is that Boeing recognizes its past mistakes are in the past and that it is making changes to remedy these mistakes.

In theory, this answer is organized and complete. From an ethical perspective, the issue with this problem is that it is reactive—the FAA’s investigations and numerous other investigations are still turning up underlying quality issues that tend to dispute Boeing’s assertions that its data accurately supports its “safety first” commitment to consumers

Assessment:

The organizational structure of Boeing’s reaction to this crisis appears to be quite serious on paper—these are structured safety plans that are publicly reported and visibly responsive to regulators’ demands and attempts to allow production to be slowed. But further:

• The majority happen after regulatory requirements and crises within the public domain.
• Independent investigations (NTSB, FAA, DOT OIG) are still finding problems with production and documentation that call into question claims about the effectiveness of internal controls.
• The use of “safety first” slogans with an inconsistent focus on process fundamentals (such as the execution and documentation of critical bolts) undermines these messages.

From an ethical perspective, the reaction and solution-oriented measures taken by Boeing are more reactive rather than principle-based. The company is doing the right thing and taking positive action; however, the standard of proof is particularly high in the commercial aviation industry. Without evidence from an independent source that there has been a shift in critical-to-success safety culture within its plants and organizational incentives, the story told by Boeing becomes more about proving its right to operate rather than trust that has been earned.

SOURCES

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Airlines_Flight_1282

https://www.boeing.com/content/dam/boeing/boeingdotcom/safety/Safety-and-Quality-Plan_Executive%20Summary-5-30-2024.pdf

https://www.boeing.com/safety

https://www.boeing.com/content/dam/boeing/boeingdotcom/safety/caso/caso-report-2024.pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i0dg13Wcco